Over the past decade, Apple’s design standards have driven the hardware industry to shorter design cycles and exceptional quality. During the same time frame, the software industry has maximized the efficiency of the design and delivery process using workflow and intelligent automation tools like AWS, Docker, Github and Atlassian.

Despite these advancements, today’s hardware teams are still reliant upon a 20-year-old suite of Microsoft Office tools to manage complex workflows. The system of communication and coordination mechanical engineers and manufacturers use to manage projects has developed organically over the past five decades. It exists as a patchwork quilt of inefficient tools like email and file sharing applications. The result is extreme and unnecessary delays and costs from start to finish. For hardware teams that are juggling multiple projects at once, their full potential is never realized. Antiquated processes create barriers that prohibit potentially landmark innovations from ever coming to market because they are simply too involved or too costly to produce.

To match more competitive and efficient industries, the hardware community must invest in software-driven solutions that reconfigure the manufacturing process from start-to-finish in order to give time back to hardware design and production teams. This is beginning to take shape in three key areas today, but there is an opportunity to accelerate these early advances.

Workflow: Online collaboration software consolidates and simplifies communication in a single workspace, reducing the confusion and risk of email chains and offline conversations. Some also offer web-based 3-D viewing and markup tools that enable hardware teams and manufacturers to capture precise feedback, resolve issues and assemble packages for quotes.

Automation: Machine-learning algorithms that can automate processes such as Design for Manufacturability (DFM) feedback and quoting. Removing the manual interchange for each of these processes can shave days or weeks from typical manufacturing timelines.

Vendor Management: Virtual manufacturing networks are scaling internationally, with support for both local and global vendors across a wide range of production capabilities. These intelligent systems offer real time views into manufacturer capacity and quality to ensure high quality parts are delivered on time. This allows hardware teams to source a project from prototype to production through a single point of contact, saving time and avoiding missteps.

If designers are to realize the full promise of autonomous vehicles, the Internet of Things, space exploration, and more – then the hardware community must rethink how next generation physical products are developed. It demands a modern, streamlined process matched to a worldwide network of manufacturers so that design and production teams can optimize their interactions and bring higher quality products to market, faster and more affordably.

At Fictiv, we're working to democratize access to hardware manufacturing. Learn more here.